Indian-origin urologist Jitesh Patel will have to pay $14 million to settle allegations against him that he defrauded healthcare programs by performing unnecessary procedures on his patients. An employee of Patel's Advance Urology in Georgia filed a whistleblower complaint that they were performing procedures and tests that were not medically necessary. Another former employee also turned into a whistleblower and confirmed that Advanced Urology was "designed to maximize revenue for Dr Patel and others by performing medically unnecessary procedures and tests", according to court documents.
They implanted some devices in patients without determining whether the patients would benefit from the device; they performed unnecessary tests, which involved placing a patient under anesthesia; they also ordered thousands of unnecessary ultrasound tests, mandating every new patient to undergo one test, which is rarely used in urology practices. They also billed for some procedures that they never performed, the allegations said.
